


Here Be Dragons

by eostella



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: "N", Espionage, F/M, Gen, German spy!Irene, No Man's Land, Room 40, wwi
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-03-16
Updated: 2014-03-24
Packaged: 2018-01-15 23:25:40
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,958
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1323175
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eostella/pseuds/eostella
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Irene Adler was an elite intelligence agent of MI6, privy to our most confidential secrets. For her to be a double agent…she must be terminated." Lady Smallwood’s cool grey eyes lands on Mycroft, "I understand she is family."</p><p>"Not anymore."</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Absence

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There are times when he can't sleep, because the night is too long, the sheets are too cold, and the bed is too empty...

 

Sleep, to Sherlock Holmes, is an elusive and fastidious friend, visiting only when the condition is temperate. It comes not when his mind is accelerating and his spirit is strung up taut with the thrill of a fascinating murder, nor when his is choking within boredom’s stagnant hold. Sometimes sleep is chased away by a familiar itch for the perfect clarity of a 7% solution, but that hasn’t happened in a very long time. Even when sleep doesn’t come, Sherlock finds no discomfort in his wakeful state, for he never needed as much of it as the average man anyway. 

More and more, he is finding that is not the case. 

Dim orange light filters through the room as he clicks on the night lamp. The detective flips onto his side and faces the right side of the bed. Empty. He glides his hands across the invincible barrier running down the middle and shivers at the smooth cold sheets on the other side.

Closing his eyes, he tries to recall from his memory palace the press of a soft warm body nestled perfectly against him, and arms like silk bindings tethering him to that perfect place. His skin remembers the slow burn of her knowing touch, the muffled vibration of a fluttering heart, and how it quickens when his lips caress her own.

Sherlock knows now after many attempts that he could never reconstruct her laughter, that throaty, velvet sound not so frequently heard. They say a human brain is a sponge, but he thinks perhaps it is a more of a sieve, and honey and all its sweetness, would eventually seep through. Though, if he tries really, really hard, he could almost hear her breathy whisper.

_Sherlock…_

Curling up, he presses his nose into the adjacent pillow and inhales the faint citrus scent of good strong soap.

Wrong! His mind screams. 

Instantly, the thin fog of comfort he managed to conjure up evaporates completely. He opens his eyes, and the cold, empty bed is there still, and the sight guts him more than it should.

It’s been 21 months, almost two years, since the Office of Military Intelligence conscripted away his Irene; the sheets no longer hold her scent. She had left her favorite French perfume behind - purposely, he ventures, for his sake - and it’s collecting dust on the vanity. Once, a couple of months ago during a particularly long dry spell between her letters, when the ache in his chest was great enough to dampen his pride, he spritzed some on her pillow and collapsed face first into it, but it wasn’t same.

The sharpness of the perfume only made it worse, a clear reminder of her absence and the irreplaceable void that scars 221B since she was forcibly carved away. 

The war that was supposed to have ended by Christmas of 1914 had dragged into the new year with deaths tolls mounting and no end in sight. Come morning of the twentieth of January 1915, after the bombing in Norfolk, they had awaken to his brother sitting in their living room, a dreaded package in his lap, and a court-martial order detailing Agent Irene Adler’s immediate deployment to France.

Sherlock cussed at Mycroft in every language he spoke (which was quite a few), but by noon, with a soft kiss and a even softer goodbye, she was gone. 

The last look they shared was over Nero’s shoulder as their younger son clung to Irene’s neck and wailed brokenheartedly. For a split moment, something flicked in her eyes. Like a thick curtain being pulled aside, he caught a glimpse of what was within that cool exterior.

To be honest, he doesn’t remember much of Irene’s departure - the whole ordeal had been a blur, as if it’d happened too quickly for him to process. But he remembers the grey of the clouds, dripping of the icicles from the roof, and the dirty slush of melted snow splashing onto the side walk as the black Ford carried his wife away. 

Not to the trenches, Mycroft explained, but it made no difference. 

Standing there on the doorstep of their home, with six year old Hamish clutching his right hand, wide-eyed and silent, and three year old Nero on his left hip, crying up a storm, Sherlock felt what all army wives felt watching their husband march into war. He knows that the flicker in Irene’s steel-blue eyes was a reflection of his own. What he saw was a raw, cold, and undiluted fear shared by them both, because there was a very probable chance, all calculations considered, that they were never going to see each other again. 

As the months dragged on, the neighours began to whisper. Some said she died of influenza, others accused her of leaving him for another man. Either way, Sherlock was informed he had been exempted from the Military Service Act that came into effect this past March. At the time, Irene had not written a single word in months, not even Mycroft had exact information of her whereabouts. So when the officer who came to register households on Baker Street told him widowed men with children did not have to serve, the pain of those words were as vivid as knives stabbing into his gut.

After the officer left, Sherlock threw up into the kitchen sink, and sobbed. Wreckage of Irene’s lifeless corpse abandoned in No Man’s land, blistering from chlorine gas, haunted him like ghosts before his eyes. 

Two weeks later, a letter came. She was still with him. 

To date, Irene had composed 7 letters. He read them all countless time, and he kept them neatly folded in their envelopes in his bedside drawer. Some nights, like tonight, he takes them out, and tucks them under Irene’s pillow. When he closes his eyes, he plays those words in his head, and it would be as though she is saying them to him in person.

 _To My Dearests,_  they always began, addressing all three of her boys. Her letters became bedtime stories to Nero and Hamish; Sherlock would have one son curled up with him on each side, and he would read them Irene’s words. Their only comfort, in this bleak darkness, is the knowledge that somewhere cross the ocean their mother is still alive, and it is this hope of her return that sends them drifting into sleep.  

_My thoughts are with you always._

_Love,_

_IAH_


	2. Crisis

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "War or no war, family is family, and it makes slaves of us all."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WARNING: This isn't really a new chapter! I'm just reformatting how I originally posted these chapter. Before they were stand alones that are part of a series, but now I've changed it into a multi-chaptered fic.

Lady Smallwood is an impeccable woman. At 4:07 in the morning, she is perfectly composed, not a hair out of place, her make up subtle but perfect. The only things sharper than her tailored charcoal suit are her pale grey eyes, which fixated unrelentingly on the man sitting in the armchair across from her. 

"Your tea, ma’am. A splash of milk, no sugar, if I remember correctly," Anthea places two china cups on the table between them, and Mycroft wonders if Lady Smallwood can truly appreciate the gesture for what it is. Making tea is perhaps the highest level of respect Anthea is capable of paying to an individual; before this moment, the only person who has ever had the privilege was Mycroft Holmes himself.  

Lady Smallwood brings the saucer to her lips, but her gaze follows the figure of the young woman as she retreats to stand behind Holmes’s chair. She’d clearly just risen out of bed; there is a degree of tiredness around her large hazel eyes, and her chestnut brown hair falls loosely against her satin-clad shoulders. Imported silk from Japan. Expensive. Probably a gift. 

Mycroft quickly catches on to his colleague’s line of thought and grimaces at his own pajama bottoms and dressing gown, now wishing at least one of them had bothered to change out of their nightwear. But he can’t worry about that now, not when there’s a much bigger issue at hand. 

Irene Adler. German double agent. Mycroft has yet managed to wrap his head around it. He knows he should think of this objectively, of potential detriment this could inflict on the Allies forces, the irrevocable damage that has already been done. How much state secrets has she already betrayed to the Germans? How much technology, intels, and strategies have been leaked from this crack within the British intelligence fortress. He should worry about all those things, but all he could focus on is how the hell is he going to explain this to Sherlock.

On average, his little brother possesses very little sentiment compared to the majority of the feeble minds wandering this planet, and before, Mycroft could never tell you how much Sherlock loved his wife, except that it was rather irrational. Presented with this new piece of information, the older Holmes knows he’d miscalculated the depth of affection which his brother feels towards Irene, because suddenly, he is less worried about Sherlock’s broken heart, than is he about whether or not his brother would choose to betray his country for his wife.

Honestly, Mycroft can’t say that he wouldn’t, and his doubt stems from reasonable grounds. Sherlock and he are brothers; they are cut from the same cloth. The fate of a double agent, if captured, is not a merciful one. Irene Adler will be imprisoned and subsequently beaten and tortured until she spills enough blood and information. Glancing sideways at Anthea, Mycroft knows that had Anthea’s name been on that report, he may not trust himself to make the ‘right’ decision either. 

Thankfully, Elizabeth Smallwood seems relatively unaware of the traitorous musings in his mind. “We need to make a decision on her fast.” 

"She is currently unaware of her exposure, though with her skill sets, that will not stay long. The best course of action is to bring her back alive to England. I’ve no doubt that woman’s mind is full of the German’s secrets." 

"We’ll need someone who understands her and reliable." 

"Have you someone in mind?" 

"A couple." Elizabeth admits, setting down her tea. "I was hoping to run it by you after you’ve spoken with your family." 

Mycroft frowns. He will not stand as seen being undermined by sentiment, especially not during wartime. “Elizabeth -“

But the older woman holds up a hand in amity, “War or no war, family is family, and it makes slaves of us all. Kaiser initially forbade the bombing of London for fear of his relatives in the royal family getting hurt.” She offered a small, pitying smile, “Talk to Sherlock. They have children together, if I understand correctly.” 

Mycroft sighs, “Two boys.”

"Exactly." Lady Smallwood stands up, smoothing the nonexistent creases in her skirt. Once again, her attention lands on Anthea and she smirks dryly. 

"The Holmeses and their taste for dangerous women; I’m beginning to see a pattern here." She pauses, pinning the brunette beneath her scrutiny. "Although for the sake of the British nation, I’m sure hope you’re not a German spy as well.”

Anthea’s response is a proud upturn of her chin and a defiant silence. 

Lady Smallwood tilts her head quizzically, as if she was unsure whether or not to be amused by Anthea’s obstinacy or be offended by her bold insolence. The two women hold each other’s gaze wordlessly, and in the end, it is Elizabeth who breaks it first and leaves without another word. 

The door shuts behind her with a muffled thump. 

"Mycroft, please speak to me." Anthea’s hand against his hunched shoulders is soft and warm.

The older man turns to her. Slowly, he reaches out and cups her elbows, pulling her closer to him. She touches his cheek as he stares imploring up at her. 

"I’m not," whispers Anthea, knowing exactly what Mycroft needs to hear. 

He takes her hand and brings it to his lips. The grip he has almost hurts, but she doesn’t complain. “I trust you, Ann. Some days it seems like the only person I trust is you - so please, don’t do to me what she has done to him.”

Anthea runs her fingers gently up the back of Mycroft’s skull through his curls, and his forehead falls unbidden against the soft surface of her stomach. Neither of them say a single word for a very long time.


	3. Belligerent

After ten years, one would think she’d forgotten what the sting of his hand feels like on her body, but Godfrey  hits like he always did, brutal, open-palmed, and utterly merciless. 

Irene hears the thickening crack first before pain blooms across her left cheek. This blow comes even harder than the last, and her vision goes white. Yanking her by the hair, Godfrey  jams the sharp point of his knee into her stomach before flinging her towards the ground. 

Her body hits the floor with the full force gravity. Head buzzing and choking with pain, Irene pushes herself onto her elbows, only to be shoved down by the foot stomping on the back of her head.

"Blvde Fotze(1)." Godfrey  spits, wiping the sole of his leather shoe against her torso, as if he just stepped in something disgusting. The cheap leather oxford leaves a dirty brown track on her white linen blouse. 

Twisting around, Irene smirks just a bit at the sight of his bleeding nose, evidence of the mean backhand she served at him for slapping her. Her smirk turns into a shocked cry as Godfrey  kicks his foot into her ribs. Hard.

"You should your learn place, pet." He mocks, stepping back to give himself more momentum before his leg plows through the air and plunges into her again. Harder.

Flipping her onto her back, he straddles her, eyes bright with malevolence and a perverse gleefulness.

Irene bares her teeth and growls, “Du verdammtes Arschloch(2)!! Get off me!!” 

The back of his  hand tears across her face like steel, and it knocks the daylight out of her. Godfrey  has a special way he likes to hit. His strikes are always lateral, alternating from left to right repeatedly, and no matter how much agony she is in now, she never has much to show for her suffering. He doesn’t break her nose or give her a black eye. He likes pretty things, he tells her, but more than that, he likes to hear to their screams when he breaks them apart. 

Behind his hand, she feels her lips split apart and blood ooze between her teeth. He beats her so violently she fears she might pass out, but then he leans down just enough for her to reach, and she swings her arms up at him, nails digging into his neck, clawing five bloody streaks through his skin. 

Godfrey  roars, grabs her wrists and slams them down beside her head. “Oh she is a feisty little slut,” he leers, pungent whiskey breathes puffing across her face. 

Irene heaves, her head ringing so loudly she can barely see straight,”I am a German asset, an agent of N. You may be my handler, but you have no authority to-“

His free hand closed around her throat, “Not as your handler, Irene dear, as you husband. Or did you forget who you’re talking to?”

Her chest tightened but not from a lack of air. Flashes of dark unruly curls and clear, gem-like eyes that seem to hold all the colours in the world dash fleetingly through her mind. Her husband. 

Sherlock. 

A sick feeling churned deep inside, making her want to hurl. 

When Godfrey  Norton first met her in Berlin, she was only sixteen, a little girl with a sharp tongue and a clever mind. Godfrey  was tall and handsome, all smoldering dark eyes and mysterious smile. He told her once that she had a lovely face, a face men could leave their wives for, could kill for, and in her foolish youth, she thought it had been a compliment. How was she to know that her prettiness was to be the stepping stone beneath his feet, laid down and exploited for his own political gain. 

_"A position has opened for a female agent to be placed undercover in England. Dormant, until the right time. Do you have someone in mind?"_

_"Yes Kaiser, I believe I do. My Irene."_

_"Your…wife? She is seventeen, a child."_

_"And a very qualified agent of N. Perhaps you’d like to meet her? I think you’ll find her to be wise beyond her year, and…very pretty."_

"N-no," She chokes out, wrestling one hand free to shove away his jaw just as he tried to kiss her. "You lost that right when you gave me up to the Kaiser like a pathetic syncopate you are. I have a husband, and it’s not you."

His grip tightened around her throat, “Oh that Holmes fellow. Sherlock, isn’t it? I know all about him and those little bastards he sired.” 

His words fall upon her ear like matches on gasoline. Burning fury ignites within her, and she surges up and spits in his eye, “Don’t talk about them!”   All wild rage and bloody teeth, she mocks, “Er ist eher ein Mann als Sie jemals sein wird (3).”

Perhaps it is a dumb thing to do to taunt her attack. Godfrey  is 6 feet tall, strong and solid. Compared to him, a 5’3 ” Irene, though fit and agile, is thin-boned and small. He can beat her all he wants, but she’d die first before she let him have the last word. Snatching her right wrist, Godfrey  grinned sickeningly at her, and with one practiced twist, snapped it half. 

Irene arches off the floor as white-hot pain pulses through her body, pride and her teeth the only things keeping her the bloodcurdling wail from ripping out her windpipe. She won’t scream, won’t give him the satisfactions. 

"We’ll see how tough you really are." He laughs at her, and shift his weight so he can flip her onto her stomach. She hears the clinking of of his belt buckles and pain shoots up her arm against as her wrists are yanked behind her and bound. 

"Don’t you dare, Norton!! I’ll fucking kill - " Her threat dies in her throat as he pushes into her. She isn’t wet enough, and it’s been months since she’d been intimate with anyone. Her last handler had been a proper intelligence agent, expecting nothing from her but information. She liked him as a person - they were friends - but then the French caught him, so she had to shoot him to protect her own identity. 

Now she wishes she hadn’t.  

Irene wonders if this is some form of punishment for killing a fellow German and decides that even if it isn’t, Godfrey  would still do it just for his own sadistic amusement. He is a brute and a large man in more ways than one. Each thrust is selfish and relentless, burning her in more places than just between her thighs. 

"I’ll have to thank Holmes. He treated you well, keeping you nice and perfect for me. Isn’t that right, my little bird?" Godfrey  laughs, hips snapping faster and rougher. The sound of fabric tearing sends chills down her spin. After the tattered blouse is tossed aside, he clawed his way through the bindings of her brassiere. His lips are on her neck, biting and licking, and the roughness of his palm is everywhere, pinching and squeezing as if to reclaim what he once had. He means to possess her, to dominate her actions and body and soul like he did before.

Irene suppresses the urge to gag.  

"Did you miss this?" Godfrey  pulls all the way out, wrenching her head back by her black curls. “‘Cause I sure missed you. You might as well accept it now, because I will be back tomorrow, the night after that, and every night until I grow sick of  you. That  _vacation_  you had in England is over, Irene dear, so you can forget about your little flat on Baker Street that detective and your bastard children because  _your British marriage_  is a lie. Legally, you’re mine.”

Heart pounding in her chest, Irene turns her head away and squeezes her eyes shut, holding in the tears with nothing but denial and a shuttering breath. She won’t let the bastard win; she won’t.

Pulsing racing with excitement and lust, Godfrey  knows how close he is to winning, to breaking his little bird apart. God, her despair is so turbid he can almost taste it on his tongue. Her wings flap and bucks in his grip as does her pride, but he knows just a smidgen more pressure and they’d snap in two. 

Breathing into her ears, he sang, “Oh don’t look so sad, you know the rules. When your dormancy ends, you have to wake up from that London dream. You’re not the only agent activated, but the others, they’re smarter than you were; they knew what was appropriate. So this is all your fault, you see. Those blue-eyed boys, you want them to live don’t you? So you’ll obey me, and you serve Germany. Don’t forget where your loyalty truly lies, Irene.”

He sighs dramatically, “And besides, if Holmes finds out about this, about the whore he married, I doubt he’ll want you back.” 

Without warning, he shoves himself back in all the way to the hilt. 

This time, Irene does scream. 

—-

The night is dark and cold. She walks what seems like miles until her feet are so frozen she can barely feel them and the pain of her broken wrist is numbed down to a dull throb. Godfrey  had left her on the floor after he felt he’d taken her thoroughly and numerously enough. 

For a while, she considered just lying there and never get up, but the more she remained in that room, the more aware she became of the smell he left behind, of the tattered blouse tossed aside, and of the mess he’d made of her. Him buried between her legs, his sullied hands on her body, his lips on place where it had no business being…if she didn’t get out of that place, she thought for sure she’d lose her mind.

So she did, pulling on her coat and shoes and slamming the door behind her.

She sat down on some snow-covered steps, huddling into her coat. In the darkness, she hears music and the tune reminds her of Stille Nacht, except it’s in French. 

A couple walks by arm-in-arm, voices hushed but happy despite the looming war. Their gaze falls upon her huddled form, and God, she must have been a sight because she hates the pity in their eyes and the honey-glazed way they chorused, “Joyeux Noël!!”

As she watches their retreating form, Irene finally takes in the scattered lights around the neighbourhood and understands the faint music in the background for what it is.  

It’s Christmas. 

Blinking slowly, eyes welling with tears again, she looks up just in time to see the church-bell swing from its tower. Arms coming around her her knees, she lowers her head and lets the bell’s chimes, low and peaceful, mask her broken sobs.  

Yet through the tears, something sparks within her mind, an electric impulse which surges through the circuit she built out of trauma. Though the dew of her hurt still clings to her lashes, the tap is shut off at its source. Straightening up, Irene faces the wintry chill with a calm face, bolstered by a sudden sense of direction that eluded her all these months. A resolution.

An end game.

She doesn't delude herself with happy endings; she is not so naive. But she knows now it doesn't matter who wins this war, the British, the German, Axis or Allies, for her there is only one that counts. Godfrey Norton must die. 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> . German translation (oh god, I probably butchered it): (1) Stupid cunt (2) Bloody arsehole! (3) He’s more of a man than you will ever be.
> 
> 2\. Pre-WWI era was famous for its German-spy stories. Indeed, U,K’s M.I system was developed from the threat of German espionage, but historically, what was more real was the fear of spies not actual spies. German spies pre-war was mostly interested in Britain’s military technology, even during the war, their naval espionage organization (N) never got very far. However, German spies as always made a great story on paper, so much that even ACD in His Last Vow (published 1917) wrote about how Sherlock Holmes dismantled a German spy ring.


End file.
